Too Many Marys

Oh dear, my life at the Lincoln Home increases in absurdity every day :-) Today I was inundated with Abraham and Mary Todd Lincolns--literally. There is something called the Mary Lincoln Coterie, which is basically a bunch of ladies who think they look like Mary Todd Lincoln and travel around the country together. They have an annual pilgrimage to Springfield during July to remember Mary's death on July 16, 1882. This year, one of their bunch decided to come do a program at the Lincoln Home. It was called "Lincoln Letters" and was a reader's theater featuring letters between Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln during different stages of their lives. I did not schedule this program but was given the task of coordinating it. Coordinating it was quite a feat, as today's particular Mary Lincoln was very high maintenance. And then pulling off the program today was an even more miraculous doing. Because the program took place at 10:00 this morning--when we're not very busy at the park--there weren't very many visitors who attended the program. Most of the people in the audience were Abraham or Mary Lincolns. My boss Laura was not there today, so I had to put out all of the unanticipated "fires." Let's just say that five minutes before the program started, I was running around trying to find a knife and fork for Mary to use when she cut a piece of real cake during one of the scenes. My job during the program was to dim the lights in between each of the "scenes," but Abe and Mary kept saying things that were not on their script, so that was quite a challenge. Anyway, the program went well, and we finally got Mary, Abe, and all of their props cleared out of the theater. By the way, today's Mary and Abe looked nothing like the real Mary and Abe! Abraham Lincoln was tall--not husky. Today's Abe seriously looked just like Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies. And the real Mary Lincoln was known to be "plump" later in life, but today's Mary was much too buxom. Needless to say, by 12:00, when I had finally cleared all of the Marys and Abes from the site, I was pooped--and then I had to give tours all afternoon. Today's Mary Lincoln is coming back tomorrow to do a different program, so I'm trying to gear up for that (in other words I need to get lots of sleep tonight and have lots of caffeine for breakfast--just kidding, sort of).

Then after the Mary Lincoln ordeals of the morning, Ranger Jim and I were standing outside the Visitor Center when a crazy man wandered up to us. He was clearly drunk and was carrying a brown box around with him. He also had a cigarette in one hand. He said, "Y'all 're tryin' ta kill everyone! I knews it was y'all. Anybody got a light?" Luckily Ranger Jim had a radio with him so we could call Law Enforcement Ranger David. The drunk crazy man then started asking visitors for a light--and telling them how "They all's tryin' to kill y'all." Ranger David confronted the man who then started freaking out. David called for backup from the Springfield PD, and finally they got the guy calmed down. I'm not sure what happened after that, but I imagine that they wrote him a ticket and sent him on his merry way.

A couple of other funny things have happened during the last few days. On Sunday I had a family on a tour, and one of the girls was wearing a Nauvoo necklace. After the tour we started talking about Nauvoo, and it turns out that this family was from Provo. We talked for a while and discovered that the dad--who looked really familiar to me--was in one of my education classes at UVSC clear back in 2003! Then yesterday I had a lady on my tour who looked just like me--it was really weird and kind of freaky. She said that her friend had visited the Lincoln Home a few weeks ago and said that their tour guide, Tiffany, looked just like her. So they thought they would come see for themselves--and it was really true--except that she had red hair and freckles. They say we all have a twin somewhere . . .